Have too much (used) oil in your hands? Make it all into soap!

Archive for the ‘Outreach’ Category

Last Saturday, the 17th of April, the Old Rafflesian Association Family Fest and Funfair(ORA) was held in RGS. Project GREASE held a booth in the hall. We sold pretty soaps that we had made ourselves!

It was a tiring day, as we tried to market our soaps to all the people that came to ORA and promote our project. The award for the person being able to sell the most soaps goes to Sophia, who managed to persuade lots of people to buy our soap!

It was a really fun experience, and we managed to sell nearly all of our soaps! Hurray!

This is our booth! Here’s Rachelle selling soap to a lovely customer! (:

And here’s a board giving people a really brief introduction of our cause.

These are the soaps packaged in pretty plastic bags. Some people even thought they were food!

All in all, ORA was a great experience for us because not only were we able to raise funds to run our project and create more awareness, we also got to enjoy ourselves!

At 915am, the six of us (Melissa, Chun Hui, Rachelle, Rachel 1, Moira and Rachel 2) rushed out of school to take a bus (actually it was two and a long walk) to MGS Primary School in Blackmore Drive. Here is MGS Primary in all its glory:

When the students streamed in, we felt really nervous, because it was the first tme any of us had actually done this kind of thing. But when we stood on stage, looking in the sea of eager little faces, and started introducing our project, we felt less nervous and more at ease. Here is a picture of Rachel 2 talking:
I think the students loved the quiz section best, maybe because the prizes were good? There was a pretty piece of soap hand-made by us, and corporate gifts provided by Ms Emily Tan. However, the video we showed them received a not-very-enthusiastic response, maybe because there was some problems with the audio.

We have learned a lot from this experience and hopefully next time, if we do these kinds of talks again, we will have more confidence and give a better talk!
MGS Primary will be our first school on board GREASE-ycle, so we will be collaborating with them in the future!

I’m finding it a little difficult to write on behalf of Project GREASE (seeing as I am only 1 of 8 people) so I’ll be making this entry a little more personal, hope you don’t mind. =)

Only 2 of us were able to make it for the 2nd oil collection due to clashing schedules with House Practice which many of our members were involved in.

We ran low on manpower that day so most groups had only two people instead of three.

Of course, during the course of the oil collection we learnt to communicate better and I daresay my oral Mandarin has improved by a very minimal margin due to communication with Chinese speaking residents!

We knocked on less than half the doors of the last collection, and filled up our bottles to the brim, which satisfied us tremendously. I remember one unit where we collected a chunk of frozen oil!

It looked rather like cheesecake and I probably would have eaten it if not for the oily smell. I think that was the best part of the whole collection, other than getting to know the lifestyle of students in Marsiling better (most of my ‘knowledge’ was inferred from their conversations, though).

‘Inspired’ by this situation, I’d like to say this to everyone who is reading this entry: Oil does not have to be frozen. Under no circumstances are you required to freeze the oil before handing it over to us.

Now that it’s all said and done, I’d like to wish everyone an early March Holiday blessing, don’t worry too much if you have a mountain of homework waiting for you to do! I’m sure there will be things for you to do to de-stress, like reading our blog!

Oh, the author still doesn’t have any photographs from any of the oil collections, but she will put them up if she gets hold of any. =)

The 2nd generation of Project GREASE members had their first taste of oil collection on Saturday, 30th Jan 2010.

Marsiling Secondary is a school that has volunteered to help in our movement to convert oil into soap. Their Green Club will be collecting oil in their area and also make soaps in their school.

We were all taken aback by the sheer number of people mobilised to help in the oil collection as we didn’t know what to expect. Of course, coming from an all girls school we weren’t exactly the most comfortable around the guys from Marsiling’s Green Club…

Needless to say, being completely green (no pun intended) to oil collection, we left the first few door-to-door visitations to the Marsiling students who were more than happy to guide us (we hope!). We learnt the ropes as quickly as we could and then began to actively participate in the oil collection.

We went from unit to unit to advocate our purpose and project, and though we were turned down more often than not, we were not discouraged. We even collected a few large bottles full of used oil!

It was a wonderful experience to be learning from others instead of teaching (like we would do during workshops)! Also, although we had to wake up ‘bright’ and early we were glad we came! It is nice to know how far Project GREASE has spread.

Sadly, the author currently does not have any photos of the event but she’ll be sure to upload them the minute she receives them!

Edit: Photos! 😀

Project GREASE and Marsling Secondary School

Students from Marsling Secondary eagerly collecting info

We truly enjoyed ourselves then! Many thanks goes to Marsling Secondary for their invaluable help and support (:

Project GREASE had their first outreach in 3 months today! It was held at Pasir Ris Blk 575 Multi-Purpose Hall, and four of us were greeted with loud booming music the moment we reached the scene. We began to set up, then followed the usual procedures: talk to interested passers-by, visit the other booths and grab a bite ourselves.

Despite the long interval between our last outreach and today’s, setting up our booth just felt like the most natural thing in the world. (:

A group photo at a newly set-up booth is a must-have every outreach.

At 6pm, kids started streaming in, and we got our very first batch of curious, earnest listeners.

Brenda is a pro with kids!

Watch the little girl whisper secrets into Brenda’s ear!

The event was from 6pm to 9pm, so gradually the sky darkened. Since it was a Children’s Day Party, there was much fun and games to occupy the children with, including the quirky song and dances below.

Spot our booth somewhere out there in the background!

We engage in deep, thoughtful discussion while the kids have fun.

Nah, just kidding – we’re human too! We pig out.

Yum yum! The Macs stuff were complimentary, courtesy of the organizing committee.

Project GREASE is wholeheartedly supportive of such events, because we feel that all of us should be environmentally-conscious from a young age. Hopefully habits can be better ingrained and values can be inculcated early in life, so they can all grow up to be responsible adults (and proactive agents of change!). Hurray for Children’s Day!

On this brilliantly bright Sunday morning, 4 Project GREASErs ventured over to Blk 412 of Fernvale Link for our latest outreach event – Fernvale Environmental Day. Huffing and puffing with all our usual booth materials with only half the number of hands to carry them, we arrived to be greeted by a sight only Singaporeans can identify with.

There, smack in the middle of several HDB housing estates, was the Fernvale Environmental Day we were looking for!

Our booth was conveniently allocated beside a bench, which we inadvertently used as a temporary dumping ground for assorted booth materials. Then it was set-up time!

…in some 15 minutes, our booth was nicely laid out as per any outreach event, and we started skipping around happily while waiting for the event to officially commence. (:

We had some time in our hands before the event would officially commence, so we strolled around to learn more about what the other booths had to offer. There were some really interesting displays – for instance, that of a shirt made from 20 plastic bottles (it felt like any normal dry-fit shirt, if you’re wondering), and a warm, (seemingly-)woolly blanket made from 70 plastic bottles.

Save the Earth, wooyeah!

Sharing our project with the public

A member of the organizing committee interviewing 2 enthusiastic Project GREASE-rs.

After presenting our project to some curious passers-by, the sky started to rumble. Ironically so, since it was only about 30 minutes before that we were forced to move a booth to a shadier site to avoid the noon sun! Just as we were about to gather up our booth materials and head for the void deck, a whole entourage of people ventured over to our booth. The Guest of Honour, Dr. Lam Pin Min, MP who represents Ang Mo Kio GRC, was here to say hello!

In a short span of 5 minutes, a whole comprehensive overview of our project was dished out in a convoluted platter to Dr. Lam, by us ever-zealous Project GREASE-rs.

Right after the GOH’s departure, the skies started to pour (you can already glimpse the overcast sky in the photos above!), so Project GREASE had no choice but to make a headway for the nearby void deck.

Lo and behold – a “group” photo, complete with a rainy backdrop, to top it all off.

Fernvale Environmental Day, as were all the various outreach events we’ve had the privilege to be invited to so far, was indeed an insightful eye-opener for us all. All these heartening communal efforts to propagate the message of environmental conservation only serves to further motivate us in bringing fourth our cause, because it goes to show that people do care passionately about environmental issues.

We arrived at Marsiling RC early in the morning, feeling slightly apprehensive about what was in store for us that day after our exhausting experience in Chong Pang four months back. It did not help either that we were dreadfully short of manpower, and was faced with the feat of conquering 21 blocks amongst 6 of us. Thankfully, though, we managed to rope in several eager and helpful schoolmates who were willing to sacrifice their time to a day’s worth of walking and knocking on doors. Thereafter we set off, with each pair/threes tasked with covering 3-4 blocks.

Can you spot one of our sleepy volunteers?

We were too used to ringing doorbells to even bat an eyelid at doing so anymore :b

The Marsiling experience was definitely different from the Chong Pang one, especially since the RC did not manage to get any volunteers this time. We had to be more ‘independent’ because there was no one to show us around, knock energetically and confidently on the door and speak Chinese to the residents the way we’d never accomplish, as did the RC volunteers did in Chong Pang. Nevertheless, this insightful experience did hone our interpersonal and persuasive skills, not to mention that we got more practice in verbal Chinese than any oral examination would ever bring 😀

The residents were generally warm and agreeable – an old lady even hobbled into her kitchen and back with a bottle of clean cooking oil which she insisted we take, a small gesture which nevertheless served as an affirmation and inspiration to all surveyors. But we did have our fair share of nasty incidences, of course, with a couple of raised voices, dismissive waves and even slammed doors. But having a natural capacity for humour and joy as we Oiliets always do, we managed to shrug/laugh them off 😀

Marsiling has proved to be extremely responsive and enthusiastic. Project GREASE is proud to announce that a whole day’s worth of aching muscles and sore knuckles has culminated in a grand total of 308 households taking part in GREASE-ycle!@Marsiling, a number which surpassed anything we’d ever hoped for. Of course, this wouldn’t have been made possible without the help of our extremely willing and generous volunteers – Project GREASE would like to extend their gratitude every single person who came down to help us that day. Project GREASE also wishes Marsiling Secondary all the best in taking over GREASE-ycle!!@Marsiling

(Very few pictures in this post, though, sorry – all of us were too busy surveying! (: )